September18
An easy & speedy dessert recipe which can be made for one person. The inspiration for this recipe is the English custard tarts I love and have not yet found in the Czech Republic. Using the apple itself for the casing means less cleaning, and incidentally produces a gluten free pudding.
*Mum used to make us apple bombs as children. It’s not the name she gave them, just the result of the occasional apple explosion. Read the rest of this entry »
September16
www.blackle.com might be gimmicky – but it is a perfect example of the way that mass action can have massive reactions. In this case, using a search engine designed to use less energy in lighting up your computer screen, has so far saved 203,250.862 Watt hours. And if you set www.blackle.com as your home page, you’ll see the figure going up as well. I just wishe they’d bother to add all the other functionality you get with the higher energy version.
It’s a shame you can’t see a similar measure of energy saved by mass scale repetition, such as switching to low energy light bulbs, or making sure your electro equipment isn’t left on standby.
September12
The woman whose patterns I am looking into has a shop here:
http://eobchod.fekar.com/
They are really very typically Czech, by which I mean interesting and a little quirky. It reminds me of the work of Denisa Grimmova – who produced a beautiful series of scenes in old fashioned tv set boxes. Funny, very human, monsters sitting down to tea together. They were installed in a bar in Prague for a while, but the last time I went there, they were gone. Shame, as I don’t have any pictures of them even & haven’t found any info on the web yet.
I’ve just had a quick look on Ebay. Hand made soft toys are not selling at a premium there, probably because lots of people can make them. Though, if she is prepared to make some toys from reclaimed materials, I could try putting something through to see how it goes. I doubt they would sell for as high a prices as they are in her shop. The toy patterns are selling, however, especially those with a seasonal theme – so at the moment Halloween theme toy patterns have a lot of bids on them. It might worth a try?
To be continued
September7
Next autumn, when we have water, and heating, and a kitchen, I will make Cider. Nový Mlýn is host to dozens of apple trees, and I have been slow to get acquainted with them, almost too late in some cases.
My feeble excuse is that the garden was so overgrown that I couldn’t tell they were falling from the trees. Now, after a few days of hard graft the lawn (we call it jokingly) is a little more under control. I have not mastered the scythe but at least understand the principle. Our neighbour came round again today and demonstrated that it needs to be close to the ground at all times, not waved about like an oar. Now, I have uncovered a tonne of apples, and roughly sorted them into usable or compostable.
So… in the orchard we have Read the rest of this entry »
